Friday, January 15, 2010

NEW Jimmy Page Book






JIMMY PAGE New Book

Publication Early 2010
Over 2 years in the making and thousands of images later, JIMMY PAGE by Jimmy Page is the ultimate pictorial autobiography and the legendary guitarist's first official published work.

This limited edition spans Jimmy's entire career in over 500 pages and 600 photographs
iconic, rare and unseen and many from Jimmy's own personal archive.

In Jimmy's words (extract from MOJO Magazine - February 2010):

"I've seen Genesis books before and I've really got a lot of time for the way they produce their books, they're really quality items. As someone who's been interested in having a library themselves, I appreciate fine bookbinding and the whole ethic of what they do and what they're trying to do with a whole catalogue of books. I was approached to do it and I was into it.

"Anyway, I wanted to do something that started at the very beginning. I haven't got me with the very first guitar that I played, because just as it came into my life by accident, I don't really remember how it went out of my life. But everything after that is in there. It shows the first guitar that was bought, my first electric guitars, my first groups. It goes through The Yardbirds changes with the line-up when Jeff (Beck) was still there and when there was four of us. Then it goes through the whole of Led Zeppelin and the changing face of Led Zeppelin - how we each change individually. It was 10 years, and 10 years is a long time. Looking at 1969 alone, I made a point of focusing on how fast things were moving. All of it is presented properly and I hope it's interesting."

More information on this incredible title will follow. To register your interest and to ensure you get first chance to order please sign up your email address - click here...


Visit our boutique for lots of Led Zeppelin & Jimmy Page merch.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Ringo Starr To Become A 70 Year Old Beatle

Ringo Starr To Become A 70 Year Old Beatleby Paul Cashmere - January 13 2010


Ringo Starr will turn 70 years old this year.


The eldest of famous The Beatles will hit his 70-year milestone on July 7, 2010.

Ringo was three months older than John Lennon, who would have turned 70 this year. Lennon was 40 when he was shot dead in New York City.

The oldest Beatle had he not left the band before they found fame is Stu Sutcliffe. He would have been 70 in April. Sutcliffe was the bass player while the band was in Hamburg in the early 60s.

Stu Sutcliffe was a Beatle from May 1960 to August 1961. He died from cerebral paralysis at the age of 21 in 1962.

Original drummer Pete Best is still alive. He is 68-years old. Pete Best played drums on the first Beatles single ‘Love Me Do’ but was dumped for Ringo before the first album. The ‘Please Please Me’ version of ‘Love Me Do’ features Ringo, not Pete, making the original ‘Love Me Do’ single a collectors item.

Paul McCartney will be 68 this year. George Harrison would have 67.

Ringo has the newest music of all of the Beatles. His album ‘Y Not’, his 15th solo album will be released next week. McCartney plays bass on the song ‘Peace Dream’.



(Imagine that a Beatle reaching 70!! The passage of time that can't be contained. I wonder how Ringo feels about nearly reaching that mile stone!

Age is a funny thing when you're young all you want to be is older, then when you're in your late 20's you really think wow time is passing and it's not waiting for me. Then when you get in your 30's and other miles stones you really go thru pondering of what am I leaving behind what is MY legacy.

Everyone wants to leave something meaningful behind, something that shows your time on this earth. I venture to say there comes a point in ones life when you start to really embrace each and every day no matter how old you are. Old people that are in their 70's and up get a different feeling towards life, they begin to brag about thier age instead of dreading the fact that they're one year older. But in the end we make the life we live so dance, drink and be merry and feel as young as you want to be.)

Monday, January 11, 2010

Artist of the Month The Grateful Dead






Grateful Dead Biography

In 1965 the band made the stylistic switch from folk music to rock music, with Jerry Garcia, Ron Pigpen McKernan and Bob Weir from the Jug Champions joined by Bill Kreutzmann and Phil Lesh, and in 1967 - the band's breakthrough year - another percussionist, Mickey Hart.

Playing originally as The Warlocks, and later "The Grateful Dead" (a name inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead), they became the de facto resident band of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, with the early sound heavily influenced by Kesey's LSD-soaked Trips Festivals. This early period is covered in Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." Their musical influences varied widely with input from the psychedelic music of the era, combined with rhythm and blues, jazz, and country. These various influences were distilled into a unique new music that was a synthesis of all American folk music forms to-date; it paid homage to previous forms, and also reflected a sense of adventure and a continuous quest for the "musical unknown"; more often than not, exploration and a search for continual newness were the hallmarks of their live performances.

The early records reflected their live repertoire -- lengthy instrumental jams with guitar solos by Garcia, best exemplified by "Dark Star" -- but lacked the energy of the shows and did not sell terribly well. The 1970s live album Live Dead did capture more of their essence, but commercial success did not come until the country influence came through, on American Beauty and Workingman's Dead, both released in 1970. These records featured the band's laid-back acoustic musicianship and more traditional song structures.

Jerry Garcia played lead guitar and Phil played bass guitar. Bob (usually referred to as "Bobby"), the youngest member of the group, played rhythm guitar. Pigpen played keyboards, harmonica and was an inspirational vocalist until his death in 1973. Both Bill and Mickey played drums, and a wide variety of other percussion instruments. Mickey took an extended leave of absence from 1970 to 1975. Tom "TC" Constanten also played keyboards in 1968-1970. In 1971, Keith Godchaux followed TC on the keyboards - appearing alongside Pigpen on tour. Keith brought his wife Donna Godchaux as a vocalist. Keith and Donna left the band in 1979, and Brent Mydland joined as keyboardist. Brent was the keyboardist until his death in 1990. Without missing a show, Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby joined as keyboardists. Vince stayed with the band until 1995. Bruce left in 1992.

Touring was the hallmark of the Grateful Dead. With the exception of 1975, the Grateful Dead toured regularly around the USA from the winter of 1965 until July 9, 1995 - with a few detours to Canada and Europe (see Dick's Picks 7, Hundred Year Hall, Steppin' Out with the Grateful Dead, and Europe '72) and 3 nights at the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt in 1978. Their numerous studio albums were generally collections of new songs that had been initially played in concert. The band was famous for their extended jams, which showcased both individual improvisation as well as a singularly unique "group-mind" improvisation where each of the band members improvised individually, while still blending together as a cohesive musical unit, often engaging in extended improvisational flights of fancy. A hallmark of their concert sets were continuous sets of music where each song would blend into the next (a segue).

Many of their fans, commonly referred to as Dead Heads, would follow the band on tour. In contrast to many other bands, the Grateful Dead encouraged their fans to tape their shows. For many years, almost all of their shows would have dedicated taping sections. The band allowed sharing of tapes of their shows, as long as no profits were made on the sale of their show tapes.

Starting in 1991 the they has released numerous live concerts from their archives in two concurrent series: the From the Vault releases are multi-track remixes, whereas the Dick's Picks series are based on two-track mixes made at the time of the recording. There have been at least 28 DP releases as of April 2003. Then a series of videos began to trickle out of "The Vault" starting with View From the Vault (recorded in Pittsburgh on July 8, 1990 at Three Rivers Stadium) and Another View from the Vault (recorded in Washington, DC on June 14, 1991 at RFK Stadium.) All three series of releases continue to this day.

Following Garcia's passing in 1995, the remaining members formally decided to disband and pursue various solo projects: most notably Bob Weir's Ratdog, Phil Lesh and Friends and Mickey Hart's music for the 1996 Olympics. Bob, Bill, Phil and Mickey reunited in mid-2002 as The Other Ones, and embarked on a fall tour throughout the eastern half of the U.S. On February 14, 2003, reflecting the reality what was, they renamed themselves The Dead, keeping 'Grateful' retired out of respect for Jerry. The adventure continues.

Grateful Dead merch!

Thursday, January 07, 2010

2009 Year of The Beatles






2009, The Year Of The Beatlesby Paul Cashmere - January 7 2010


What about those new kids called The Beatles hey. Didn`t they have a good year last year.


The Beatles broke up 40 years ago. In 2009, they were the third biggest selling act in America, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The Beatles sold 3,282,000 albums last year putting them third overall behind Michael Jackson and Taylor Swift.

The Beatles also had the biggest selling album on vinyl in 2009. 34,800 copies of the 1969 release on vinyl went to new homes. The Beatles were second behind Radiohead as the biggest selling vinyl act of the year. Radiohead sold 45,700 LPs to The Beatles 38,000.

The Beatles are the second biggest act of the SoundScan era. They have sold 60,370,000 albums in the USA since SoundScan started in 1991.

The ‘1’ album is also the 7th biggest album of the SoundScan era. It has sold 11,564,000 copies in the USA since its release.

‘1’ was also the biggest selling album of the past decade in the USA. Second is N’Sync ‘ No Strings Attached’.

The Beatles were the second biggest selling act of the past decade. They sold 30,182,000 units behind Eminem 32,241,000.


Vist our boutique for cool Beatles merch

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Pink Floyd Green Project

Pink Floyd Green Project

Pink Floyd fans around the globe will rejoice that London’s iconic Battersea Power Station, featured on the cover of Animals with an enormous pink floating pig, will live on as a green development project. (This is good news,Animals is one of my favorite Floyd albums plus the artwork on it is just great.)